Is this kind of "hidden" text a Google Approved Method?

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Is this kind of "hidden" text a Google Approved Method?

Preeminent

8:30 pm on Jun 18, 2008 (gmt 0)

Ok, well everyone knows about the whole hiding text in the background of a webpage "trick" for the old search bots. What I am wondering is this though: I am needing to do content text in photoshop and therefore google will just see this as an image. If I was also to "hide" the same exact text actually in the background of the page, would google frown upon this? I'm doing this of course so google's bots can find the site easier.

penders

1:45 am on Jun 19, 2008 (gmt 0)

This is really what the ALT attribute is for on the IMG tag. Although by the sounds of it you might have a lot of text? In that case you could use the LONGDESC attribute [w3.org] as well to perhaps link to a longer description? Although I'm not sure that this is really the intended use and neither how well it's supported?

I think the long and short of it is that text should be text - what about accessibility?

If I was also to "hide" the same exact text actually in the background of the page, would google frown upon this?

Possibly, yes. Do you need to 'hide' it? If someone hand-assessed your page, then may be you'd get away with it, perhaps? It's a risk.

Preeminent

2:07 am on Jun 19, 2008 (gmt 0)

Thanks for the reply! It would be easier if I could show the actual page of course, but I ended up just having to do a content box that will include a paragraph with it written in photoshop instead of my web editor(dreamweaver) And seeing as this will be the main and pretty much only content on the home page for google to find, I wanted to "hide" the same exact text -written in dreamweaver- into the page as well for the bots.

Marshall

6:54 am on Jun 19, 2008 (gmt 0)

You could try a rel link that is text only, but I am not sure how proper that is for what you are trying to do. From W3C

User agents that support LINK will load the alternative page for those users whose browsers may be identified as supporting "aural","braille", or "tty" rendering.
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Welcome to the Virtual Mall!</TITLE>
<LINK title="Text-only version"
rel="alternate"
href="text_only"
media="aural, braille, tty">
</HEAD>
<BODY><P>...</BODY>

Marshall

mattur

9:59 am on Jun 19, 2008 (gmt 0)

And seeing as this will be the main and pretty much only content on the home page for google to find

Then it absolutely shouldn't be in an image. You can use the alt attribute to cram the text in, but if it's important page content then it needs to be marked up accordingly in the page.

You've got two options: re-design using CSS and a background image with the text marked up as a paragraph in your HTML, or use alt and accept Google will not give the text as much weight.

I agree with penders:

the long and short of it is that text should be text

Putting text in images is a bit 20th century ;) and imho really should be avoided - especially when you're aiming for good rankings (and speed). HTH